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Why we ALL had manipulative parents
I noticed many people here had "not so healthy" family dynamics.
And something struck me today.
It's not because those people are the exception.
It's because it's the norm.
Only 3 types of people talk and behave "straight":
- Too naive, who aren't even able to manipulate. No honor here
- Too good for this world. Who'd make for an ineffective parent
- Honorable men, high quality women, eagles who worked on themselves
You don't necessarily want one and two.
And three are rare.
So the moment you start learning (social) power dynamics, you're almost bound to see turkey-like behavior, petty lies, and small-time manipulation tactics.
Happy to read any thoughts on this.
The same applies to friends and partners.
Of course it's a spectrum.
The more correct point is that the grey-ish areas are the norm.
The darker grey is not uncommon.
And the full light of (almost) wholly straight communication and behavior is uncommon.
Food for thoughts, definitely!
I think the "straight" behaviour is also on a spectrum. Like most people behave straight 60-80% of the time (made up numbers, it's about the idea). So I view it also in the percentage of time one spends in a "higher self"/eagle behaviour. Like above I see described the people who behave straight 90-95% of the time.
I'm not sure it's the norm. As I wrote I feel like most people are in the average of 60-80% of the time. Otherwise they could not keep a job, nor find a spouse.
It definitely exist. However, highly manipulative people/parents are a minority in my experience and in my mind. Like the parents I interact with daily. Parents are people. So if 10% of population is highly manipulative (10-20% straight behaviour), it means that about 10% of parents will be highly manipulative.
It's like childhood traumas. Some will have little, some will have a lot, most people will have a few. And also the intensity of it. I personally had to do 20 years of self-development, psychotherapy, etc. to overcome the traumas. And I feel it's not the case of the majority of the population in my experience. Yes, we do not share openly all our traumas, so I have only partial information here.
However, I think you're right when saying that it's only a minority of people who are eagles, and therefore a minority of parents who are eagles.
edit: multiple edits
Hi Lucio,
I agree with this, lot of the people I look up to had lot of issues growing up themselves, and this continued down the line to me, even if, that wasn't their intention, but they couldn't help it because they did not know better, Even know I'm trying to unlearn and learn a lot many traits and behaviors, it is not easy going, but thankfully along this journey I find some amazing resources, people community like TPM from time to time which helps in my journey to become an eagle, and not pass it down to the next generation.
I also feel it is not possible completely to become an ideal eagle because we are limited as humans, but striving attain that perfection will certainly be worth the journey.
Mav
What I think is that people who had manipulative parents have a lot of trauma, self-esteem issues, etc.
So it's normal that they feel attracted to self-development. Especially if they're more self-aware than the majority. So for me:
High level of psychological/emotional wounds + high intelligence + high determination + self-awareness lead to self-development.
Hi Lucio,
it's an interesting thread.
I've been reflecting on this, and what you write seems more and more true the more I learn about the world in my new post-TPM frame.
While the official statistics say that people who have a manipulative personality are 10% of the human population, if we look around in real life it seems much higher.
Probably most people (75%?) have a form of trauma or narcissistic personality that brings about manipulative traits.
Non-manipulative people (on one side), or eagles (on the other side) are very rare.
So maybe we just were in the "bad but common majority" group, and those who had good parents are in the "good little minority".
Taken in this light, the fact that some of us were more traumatized than others from our childhood starts to depend mostly on us and our reaction. I, for one, was completely helpless before-TPM.
This is actually empowering: we still have no responsibility for what we didn't know, but now we can live well and address the manipulation more effectively.
I had totally missed the replies here.
Thank you all, going to read them carefully (and potentially respond).
